Dr. Charette noted that more than 1,000 years elapsed before instruments of such complexity are known to have re-emerged. A few artifacts and some Arabic texts suggest that simpler geared calendrical devices had existed, particularly in Baghdad around A.D. 900.

Somebody I know once claimed, only half in jest, that if it wasn’t for the Dark Ages we’d have landed on the moon by like 1200. Big ol’ imperial space-galleys or something.

How Euro-centric! It was the Islamic Caliphate that would have landed on the moon were it not for the Reconquista. Then again, they would have had to compete with the Han Chinese and their sky-dragons… but for the Mongols.